


I'll Be Home For Christmas

by unicornpoe



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angstsy Kissing, BAMF Mummy Holmes, Boys Kissing, Christmas, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining John Watson, Rating May Change, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Soft Boys, Soft kissing, Sorry for the awful title, Unilock, You all told me to write this, so i did
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-09-24 07:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornpoe/pseuds/unicornpoe
Summary: John Watson and Sherlock Holmes dated for one perfect winter. But something happened, and two years later, they haven’t spoken for four months. When John agrees to pretend to be Sherlock’s boyfriend again until the holidays are over, he wonders if it’s the worst mistake he’s ever made, or the act that will finally bring them back together again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FinAmour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinAmour/gifts).



> Hello!
> 
> This idea popped into my head during lunch yesterday, and after a bit of indecisive tweeting, I decided to write it. I'm blasting out chapters as fast as I can, so please be warned that there will likely be mistakes, but I'll fix them as soon as I have this whole thing up. I'm not pretending to have any sort of posting schedule with this other than FAST, so watch your inboxes! 
> 
> So here you have it. The fake relationship getting back together unilock Christmas AU nobody asked for but everybody (hopefully) will enjoy! Merry Christmas!

John shoulders his way through the crowds swamping the Oxford Street sidewalks. It’s tough enough going unencumbered, so with an unwieldy aluminium cane in his grip, it’s absolute hell to navigate. People press in at him on all sides, bearing shopping bags overflowing with gifts and tacky decorations; someone stands by a red bucket and rings a bell, and jolly music blares from the speakers of every shop he passes.

He doesn’t really know why he bothered coming down here. It’s not like he has anyone to buy for, other than maybe Mike, maybe Harry, and god does he hate a crowd.

Narrowly dodging a flying elbow to the face, John concludes that it must have been an ill-conceived plan to prevent himself from becoming a total hermit. Ella keeps telling him he needs to “get out more,” and “be social,” which makes sense, because even before the war he wasn’t much one for that.

But. Well. Hermitage is most definitely for him, if this is what he has to contend with otherwise. Recovery be damned. He’s catching a cab and heading back to his small, quiet flat and never leaving again—

“John!”

He freezes. His heart ceases beating. His blood runs cold.

“John Watson!”

Something that should be made very clear is this: John Watson’s life is split in two.

Before Sherlock Holmes, and After Sherlock Holmes. He’s living very firmly in After Sherlock Holmes now, and he’s made his peace (as much as one can) with remaining here. It’s been months of agony, and he’s finally done it, finally accepted that this is where he is now.  He doesn’t want to mix them—he _can’t mix them._

If John turns around, that’s it. He’ll see Sherlock for the first time since—since that day. And he doesn’t know if he can keep it together.

John turns around.

He feels like someone has punched him in the chest; like all the air is exploding out of him, leaving him weak and gasping and broken as he sags against the flimsy support of his cane. The swell of people gushes around him, and he stares, drinking up the sight before him like he’s in a desert and he hasn’t had water for far too long.

Sherlock looks… Sherlock… he looks so tired.

John hates the bright pulse of worry he feels, and smothers it quickly, clenching the fingers of his left hand. Sherlock sways in the crowd, that damn posh coat wrapped around shoulders that look somehow more fragile than they used to. His hair is a little too long, and soft, curling at his temples and around his ears like he hasn’t any product in it. There are shadows beneath his eyes like plum-shaded bruises, and, and, and John thought that the urge to kiss him would have abated after all this time but he was absolutely, infallibly wrong.

“Sherlock,” John says, and he hates the way his voice comes out in a desperate rasp, too.

John moves closer to Sherlock before he even notices it happening. It’s always been like that, ever since the first day he laid eyes on the man. John just can’t stay the fuck away.

“John,” Sherlock says again, sounding breathless. John’s name is released to the air on a little puff of white. Sherlock swallow and nods and shuffles two steps forward, his throat working above the open collar of his coat. John notices, suddenly, that his scarf is conspicuously gone. “Hello—“

“Scarf,” John barks. Sherlock flinches. John’s hands shake.

“I…” Sherlock blinks at him for half a second too long and John hates it, he hates this, he hates hi—

John can’t look at him for a second longer. He lowers his gaze the the ground, and it stays there. “Why don’t you have your scarf on?” he whispers. The desperation in his tone is shamefully evident, and yet he can’t stop himself. The words coming out of his mouth are not the words he needs to say, but he can’t make himself stop.“It’s freezing. You’ll catch your death.”

Sherlock is silent for so long that John begins to think—pray, fear—that he’s decided this is a bad idea after all and gone. But then: “May I… John. Would you permit me to talk to you?”

John wants to laugh. He’s so stupid. He’s so stupid for thinking that he could ever get over this boy, this brilliant, beautiful, horrible boy, and take his own life back. He’s lost. Always has been, always will be. There’s nothing for it.

Oh, how it hurts

John charges down the sidewalk at a speed that he hasn’t yet attempted with his cane, brushing so close to Sherlock that he almost feels the heat of him pressed against his arm. He knows Sherlock will follow wherever John goes as long as Sherlock needs something from him, and so John doesn’t bother to glance back.

***

The heat of the coffee shop John storms into is almost oppressive after the biting chill outside. John heads blindly through the maze of tables and chairs, ignoring the stares that he—and, more aptly, his cane—receive. They’re by turns pitying and judgemental, and he doesn’t have the energy to deal with either right now.

He leans his cane against an empty table and peels his coat off, dropping it onto the back of a chair before he sits; he’s already sweating a bit inside here, and the feeling makes his skin crawl. He watches Sherlock lower himself cautiously down across from John, coat still on.

For a moment, neither man speaks, and John allows himself to pretend. Just for a second.

To pretend that this is simply another day from that perfect winter two years ago. To pretend that he led Sherlock here with their fingers entwined, and kissed him under the awning before they stepped inside. To pretend that nothing since then has ever happened: no war, no tearing bullets, no bloodied hands, no letters that came less and less frequently before stopping altogether, no fateful first day back in London, where John witnessed his every dream shattering before his eyes.

Sherlock’s voice breaks through John’s thoughts, and his illusion dissipates like trailing steam.

“Coffee?”

He jerks his head sharply; a dismissive no. He stares at Sherlock’s long, slender fingers on the table between them, clasped together neatly. John used to kiss those knuckles with tender lips. They look cold.

“What do you want?” John whispers finally.

Sherlock is breathing quickly on the other side of the table, and his knuckles go white with the force of his grip. He clears his throat, and the noise is ripped and raw.

“You look well,” he says softly, and it’s so unexpected that John looks up, their eyes meeting.

John tried so hard to forget the weight of Sherlock’s gaze on him, the way it makes him feel present and living and _seen._ He never quite managed.

“No I don’t,” John says. The bluntness to his words makes Sherlock’s eyes widen a little, dark lashes fanning out, colour intensifying. “Don’t lie to me,” John says, and barely manages to keep from saying _if that’s something you can manage._

“It’s psychosomatic,” Sherlock rejoins randomly, gesturing at John’s cane leaning against the edge of the table. The corners of his lovely mouth turn down.

“I know that.”

“John,” Sherlock says quickly, leaning his upper body forward. He’s hesitating, and Sherlock never hesitates. The tone of this conversation has changed so many times that John is dizzy. “Did you… was it…” he presses a palm to his own shoulder, right where John’s scar is, and his frown deepens.

John wants so badly to tell him. Sherlock is looking at him with that light behind his eyes, like a candle flame, and John just wants him to know. He wants to crawl under a pile of blankets with this man, and curl up against his chest, and whisper all the horrors he went through while he was gone. He wants to confess things that he’s never told another living soul, and he wants to be kissed on the place that marks the day he nearly died. He wants to be held by Sherlock Holmes. He wants this so badly that he sometimes thinks his lungs will simply refuse to draw another breath unless he can have it.

“Sherlock,” he says, and it’s the first word he’s managed to utter that sounds even close to normal. “That’s not what you want to say to me.”

Sherlock pulls back like he’s been slapped, and the guilt that John feels is as immediate as it is misplaced. He wants to stand up and throw himself to his knees and wrap his arms around Sherlock’s waist, and he wants to lean across his table and punch him. He wants _Sherlock,_ always has and always will, and if he doesn’t get away from him soon, John doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“No,” Sherlock murmurs. He’s retreating swiftly, features blanking, and John mourns the loss of him all over again. “I have a job offer for you.” Sherlock draws himself up to his full height, and his red-rimmed gaze turns piercing. “It’s distasteful to you I’m sure, but I am fully prepared to compensate you as heavily as you see fit. I know you’re currently unemployed, therefore there’s no plausible excuse you could give me. Monetarily, that is.”

God, John has a headache. A heartache. “Sherlock what the _hell_ ,” he says. “Speak in English or don’t speak at all, you posh git.”

Sherlock falters for half a second, and John inwardly curses himself. That has been way too affectionate; had recalled memories that he can’t dredge up right now. He needs to curb his tongue. Things aren’t _like that anymore._

“My mother,” Sherlock says, voice shaking slightly as he stares at his hands, “still believes that you and I are… are in a relationship. I told her you would be joining us for Christmas because she asked me and you _know_ how hard it is to deny her what she wants, John, and if I told her the truth—“ Sherlock’s cheeks are flaming, and his eyes are horrifyingly wet when he looks to John— “John. It would break her heart.”

John stares. Stares. Stares. He can’t think can’t move can’t breathe—

“Only until Christmas is over,” Sherlock whispers. “Then I’ll tell her the truth.”

There are a million thoughts racing through John’s head, spinning by too fast to catch. His heart thunders like a herd of gazelle in his chest. “Why—“ he begins, and then has to stop and swallow, his throat so dry that his words scrape it raw. “Why didn’t you ask Victor?”

Sherlock furrows his eyebrows; that adorable wrinkle appears across the bridge of his nose, and John despairs. “She’s seen your picture,” Sherlock says slowly, almost bashfully, and _fuck_ Sherlock showed his mum a picture of John and still he… “It wouldn’t work.”

Right. This is convenience. This is nothing more than convenience, there’s nothing emotional about this, Sherlock would have used Victor if he could, and John just needs to _calm down._

He can’t believe this is really happening to him. Just this morning, he’d rolled out of bed and eaten his breakfast, he’d read the newspaper, he’d tied his shoes. In fact, John realizes with a sinking heart, today had been shaping up to be one of the first full days he’s gone without thinking about Sherlock in a little over two bloody years. Today was supposed to be _normal._ Good. After Sherlock.

He should leave. He isn’t gaining anything from sitting here and listening to this gorgeous madman try his best to swindle him. John should stand up right this instant, and turn around, and never look back.

But he knows he can’t. He feels that pull even still, and having Sherlock Holmes in his orbit, closer than he’s been in a year and four months, is intoxicating.

John lets his eyes drift closed in resignation. He breathes.

“How long?”

 ***

_London, 2010_

_There’s a boy sitting in the back of John’s chemistry class who looks like he just wandered in off a runway._

_He’s tall and slim and pale; his features are almost elfin in nature, his eyes pretty and mesmerizing, and John is absolutely captivated by him._

_The boy sits like nobody John’s ever seen. There’s something… daring about it. He takes up the whole chair, elegant limbs spread for miles, his chin tipped back as he appears to pay less than no attention the professor. His dark, softly curling hair brushes that pale forehead and hangs down into his eyes whenever he tips his head, which admittedly isn’t very often. He seems to be concentrating very hard on something—just not something in this room._

_He looks young, younger than John. Twenty, maybe, twenty-one? There’s something fresh-faced about the curve of his lashes, the tilt of his lips. John’s sure he’s never seen him before. There’s no way he would have forgotten such a breathtaking human._

_When class ends, John bolts out of his chair, leaving all his things spread on the desk, and pushes past the departing students until he reaches the boy in the back of the room. John drops into the chair beside him, grinning when he doesn’t so much as look up._

_“What’s going in in there?” John asks, leaning one elbow against the boys desk and resting his cheek against his palm. He appreciates the pert, gentle line of this lovely creature’s profile, thrown into stark relief and somehow still stunning beneath the fluorescents above them. “Must be something nice to get a smile like that.”_

_The boy starts, blinking as he turns his head and meets John’s gaze. His eyes are wide and clear, the colour of foggy mornings. John shivers._

_“You’re a doctor,” he says. He has a soft, dark baritone, and John finds himself scooting his chair a bit closer to the sound._

_“Well, not yet,” he says with a chuckle. “But training to be, yeah. Good eye. Tell me how you knew that?”_

_The boy blinks some more; he appears to be short-circuiting, and it’s impossibly endearing. “Really? You want to know?”_

“ _Of course,” John smiles. He sits up, and sticks out a hand. “That was brilliant. I’m John Watson, by the way.”_

_One corner of the boy’s pretty mouth tugs upwards, and he takes John’s hand firmly in his own. His smile grows. “I’m Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.”_

* _**_

“John. Thank you.”

They’re standing outside under the awning; John wants to grab him by the lapels of his coat and kiss him.

“I’m doing it because I need a job,” he says plainly. “And this is the most convenient one.”

Sherlock’s face is carefully blank, completely unreadable. John’s always been able to read him. “Yes. I’m aware. Nevertheless, I am grateful to you, John. I know this isn’t the way you would prefer to spend your holiday.”

 _It’s not like I have anywhere else to go,_ John thinks. But he just nods, and concentrates on keeping his gaze away from Sherlock’s mouth. “Right. Well. No.”

Sherlock’s chest rises and falls slowly with his breath; his coat is unbuttoned (stupid, vain idiot) and the dark blue shirt beneath hangs much more loosely on his already thin frame than it used to. John hates hates _hates_ how worried he is; he hates how, if this were two years ago, he would take Sherlock home and make him eat and then press him back against their mattress and…

John is close, close, close, and he has no memory of it happening. He rests his cane against his leg and lifts his trembling hands, buttoning Sherlock’s coat up all the way from the bottom to the very top. His fingers brush against the heated skin of Sherlock’s neck, and they both jump with the sensation; Sherlock lets out a tiny gasp that almost sends John toppling forward into his chest.

Snatching up his cane again, John pulls away, clearing his throat stiffly. “Keep that damn thing closed,” he says gruffly, cheeks hot.

“John—”

John holds up a hand, and Sherlock’s words die off. He looks almost devastated, and John needs to leave. Now.

He hates him. He hates him. He loves him so much that the world is breaking.

“Goodbye, Sherlock. I’ll see you on Saturday.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t do things by halves, Sherlock. You know that.”
> 
> Sherlock looks at him, and it’s _that_ look. He’s lit glowingly by the afternoon sun, and his skin is almost iridescent. His curls shine. He is almost impossible to resist, and John feels like he’s freefalling out of an airplane. “Yes, John,” Sherlock murmurs. “I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just POURING out of me. Once again, rest assured that I'll come back and fix any little mistakes there may be after I have all of it posted! Also: I'm taking significant liberties with the Holmes' house—as in not following the format BBC provided us with at all. But that's fic for you, isn't it? 
> 
> Thank you for reading, friends<3

Sherlock picks John up at his flat in one of Mycroft’s shiny black cars precisely at eight AM on the dot.

John is waiting for him on the stoop outside his bedsit, because the last thing he wants is for Sherlock to come inside and begin deducing every tiny thing that’s happened to John over the past four months. There would be depressingly few deductions to make.

So John leans against the cold brick front of his building with one shoulder, the army issue duffle bag he’s thrown all his possessions into at his feet, and tells himself to take deep breaths. He focuses on calming things: things like the familiar feeling of faint annoyance that always comes up over Mycroft’s blatant overused of power, or the also familiar fact that Sherlock never lifts a finger to assist anyone if he can help it. The driver leaps out of the car, popping the boot, and he and John trundle his bag inside.

The air is crisp and cold against John’s cheeks as he rounds the side of the car. The metal of the handle is chilly and slick beneath his glove-free fingers. In this instant, with his heart beating in his throat and his stomach tying itself into knots, John feels more alive than he’s felt since that last mission in Afghanistan. Adrenaline courses through his limbs when he recalls who is sitting just beyond the thin layer of tinted glass.

John yanks the door open and slides inside, laying his cane upon the floor before looking up.

Sherlock is propped up against the opposite door, his temple resting against the window. His eyes are closed, but he’s breathing too quickly to be asleep, and the furrow across his nose is too deep to be lost in the halls of his mind palace.

Diversion, then. John’s fine with that.

Shifting so his bad leg is stretched at a more comfortable angle, John settles back into his own seat and closes his eyes, too. The engine starts and they’re off; the rumble of the car as it pulls onto the motorway soon has John drifting. He barely slept at all last night—he’s barely slept since that day Sherlock stopped him on Oxford Street. But now that he’s undergone the first part of this dreaded journey, he finds a tiny bit of the tension that’s collected across his shoulders draining away, and he allows himself to doze.

“I hope this transportation arrangement is suitable for you,” comes Sherlock’s voice, breaking into John’s fledgling rest and startling him awake. He blinks, turning his head to meet Sherlock’s eyes. He wonders how long Sherlock’s been watching him, and decides that that’s the least of his worries.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, fine,” John says, nodding stiffly. His heart sinks. He thought he’d be lucky enough to get through this whole drive without having to exchange any awkward, stilted conversation with Sherlock, but clearly he was (as usual) wrong. “Wouldn’t want to deprive Mycroft of a chance to show off,” he adds with a very poorly executed attempt at humor.

He’s rewarded for his troubles; Sherlock smiles a very small smile, inclining his head in acknowledgement of the jibe.

Sherlock looks, if possible, worse today than he did earlier in the week. The shadows beneath his eyes are deeper, darker; he wears the slightly manic, wild look that John remembers after Sherlock had gone days without sleeping or eating or taking any kind of break. On nights like those, where it had gotten so bad that Sherlock couldn’t concentrate on anything, let alone whatever case or assignment or experiment that he’d been devoting all his energy towards, John would resort to drastic measures. He would wrap his arms around Sherlock’s slender waist and draw him down onto the sofa, stretch him out on his back, and then drape himself all across every surface of Sherlock that he could cover. He would place his palms over Sherlock’s sleepy eyes, and brush his lips against Sherlock’s hot cheeks, and whisper sweet things to him until he finally, finally lost consciousness.

But John can’t do any of that anymore. All he can do is sit here and hope that Sherlock has someone to do that for him now, even if it isn’t John. Hope that Sherlock is ok.

“He is an unbearable ass,” Sherlock says in crisp, clipped tones. “And my only delight in this world is taking advantage of him.”

 _I used to delight you,_ John thinks.

“You’re good at it,” John says with a dry mouth. He tries to smile, but it feels unnatural on his lips, and if the look of poorly hidden. horror on Sherlock’s face is anything to go by, he fails.

John turns his head and stares out the window.

***

_London, 2010_

_John talks to Sherlock Holmes every single day after class for three weeks. Finally, he simply moves seats, and the two of them have the time of their lives lurking in the back and making fun of their incompetent professor._

_John learns more in this class than he’s ever learned in his life; none of what he learns has the first thing to do with chemistry._

_Instead, John learns that Sherlock’s full name is William Sherlock Scott Holmes. He’s twenty years old, and he’s going to graduate next year with a degree in chemistry. He’s fucking brilliant. He likes dogs better than cats. He doesn’t know anything about the solar system but sometimes he climbs out on the roof of his flat and counts the stars anyway because he thinks they’re beautiful. He is beautiful. He is so, so beautiful, and charming, and John is in very. Big. Trouble._

_John asks him for coffee one day in November after class, and Sherlock accepts. John buys him a piece of cake, and laughs when he gets icing on his nose. John kisses him in front of his flat as the first snowfall swirls around them, and Sherlock kisses him back._

_***_

“As far as my family is concerned, John, you and I have been dating consistently since November of 2010,” Sherlock says into the silence of the car. John nods, even though neither man is looking at the other, and Sherlock continues. “This is the only untrue thing that I have led them to believe. You need not lie about anything but this.”

John glances at Sherlock out of the corner of his eyes, staring at the silhouette of his profile against the glowing white outside his window.

“You need only follow my lead,” Sherlock says. He stares resolutely forward, even though John knows he can feel John’s gaze on the side of his face. “It shouldn’t be difficult. My family doesn’t… doesn’t expect much out of me in the way of relationships,” he says in a slightly quieter tone. “So if you’re worried about disappointing them in any way, don’t be. Everything hinges on me and the way I behave. It won’t be hard for them to believe you’re angry at me, so if—what I mean to say is, don’t hide—I know this will be difficult—”

“Sherlock,” John breaks in, and for some reason his tone is soft, comforting. He doesn’t like seeing Sherlock upset with himself, talking badly about himself. It doesn’t matter that he hurt John; he’s still the most wonderful person that John has ever met. “I’m not going to be mean to you,” he says. “This is a job. I’m getting paid for this,” he states with growing conviction. “So I’m going to be the best fucking boyfriend anyone has ever had, and it doesn’t matter how difficult it is for me. I don’t do things by halves, Sherlock. You know that.”

Sherlock looks at him, and it’s _that look_. He’s lit glowingly by the afternoon sun, and his skin is almost iridescent. His curls shine.  He is almost impossible to resist, and John feels like he’s freefalling out of an airplane. “Yes, John,” Sherlock murmurs. “I do.”

John nods, sharp. “Right,” he says. He sits back in his seat, not realizing that he’d leaned closer to Sherlock than he’d meant to during the course of his little speech. His cheeks feel hot again, his bones too big for his skin, and he squeezes his left hand tightly into a fist to keep it from shaking and giving him away. “Fine. Good.”

“Fine,” Sherlock echoes, voice soft and low. “Good.”

***

The driveway leading up to the Holmes’ estate is so long that John has worked himself into a genuine panic by the time they reach the end of it.

His breath is coming in short little gasps—percussive bursts of air that slam out of his lungs and into the world—when their chauffeur pulls up in front of a huge stone building that he barely glances at. Oh god, this was a terrible idea. This was the worst idea that he’s _ever had_ , and he decided it would be a good plan to leave the love of his life behind in London while he went and fought in a _fucking war._ What was he thinking—

Sherlock’s hand covers his on the seat between them, warm and shaking just as badly as John’s. The sensation makes John gulp.

“Just stay with me,” Sherlock whispers. He squeezes John’s fingers and John looks at him, heart pounding. “John. Follow my lead.”

“I—” John begins, not even sure what he’s going to say. That there’s nothing in the world he would like better than to _just stay with him_ , and yet simultaneously he dreads being close to Sherlock more than he can possibly articulate?

But Sherlock’s hand is gone now, and the driver has come around to John’s side of the car and opened his door, and suddenly he’s standing in the center of a gravel cul de sac staring up at the oddest juxtaposition of charming and imposing that he’s ever seen.

John can’t decide if what he’s looking at is an enormous cottage or a tiny mansion; either way, it’s large and made of butter-coloured stone and has a million windows with big red bows in them—and John is intimidated.

Sherlock comes up beside him, the toes of his expensive shoes kicking up gravel as he moves. His hands rest in his pockets, elbows akimbo, and John notices that his coat is buttoned up tight. He doesn’t know how he feels about that.

“Your luggage will be brought inside shortly,”  Sherlock says, staring up at his home. His eyes are pale and clear in this light, his pupils small pinpricks of black in the icy blue. The wind is biting here, and it shakes the spindly-bare branches of the tall trees surrounding them. His hair blows gently about his face.

“Alright.”

They don’t move.

“Sherlock,” John prompts softly, and Sherlock draws in a quick, deep breath as if he’s been startled. He sets off with long strides and John follows along behind him at a slightly slower space, cane digging into the ground with each step.

Sherlock sets his hand on the doorknob and turns to John, expression solemn. John meets his eyes and nods.

Into battle.

The door swings open before Sherlock looks away and immediately Sherlock is grabbed by a pair of eager hands. He’s tugged inside with enough force that he stumbles, and John makes a move to catch him before he remembers and lets his hands fall empty to his sides.

“ _Sherlock_ ,” exclaims the woman crushing Sherlock to her chest with both arms. Sherlock appears stiff but unresistant, relenting to his mother’s ministrations with an ease that makes John feel horribly, dangerously fond. “Oh my boy it’s been far too long. You’re so thin! Sherlock I told you you have to take care of yourself...”

John edges inside, shutting the door with a soft click. He knows he can’t avoid being noticed forever, but there’s something overwhelming about stepping into Sherlock Holmes’ childhood home—especially under these circumstances. Looking around him, he’s distressingly charmed by the spicy-smelling pine lining the stairwell, the tinsel draped on the lintel, the collection of beautifully painted nutcrackers on the table by the door.

This time two years ago, Sherlock hadn’t brought him home. _I want you all to myself this year,_ he’d whispered, so earnest that John had kissed and kissed and kissed him until they were both late for class. _Next year,_ Sherlock has said. _Next year._ And John hadn't had the heart to tell him that he would be spending the next winter under the blazing Afghanistan sun.

“And you must be John!”

Sherlock’s mother is coming toward him, arms outstretched, and before John can react he’s being hugged just as close as Sherlock was.

He meets Sherlock eyes above his mum’s shoulder: he’s blushing furiously, something closer to a smile on his lips than John’s seen in ages, and John just… melts.

“Hello, Mrs. Holmes,” John says, using the arm that isn’t gripping his cane to hug her back. She’s tall, just like both her sons, and when she pulls back to pat him on the cheek, John recognizes that same glint of intelligence in her pale eyes. He smiles. “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

“Oh, dear, you too,” she murmurs, pressing his hand between both of hers. “I can’t tell you how happy Daddy and I were when Sherlock told us about you. We—“

“Yes, Mummy, John knows how you adore him,” Sherlock cuts in a bit petulantly, coming up beside them. There’s an overdone pout on his lips, but John can tell he’s happy in the way his frown doesn’t seem to quite touch his eyes. “You’re going to scare him off.”

“Nonsense,” says Mrs. Holmes dismissively. “If you haven’t done yet, then I won’t.” She begins fussing at John’s coat, and he lets her take it from him; quickly he’s realized that there’s no arguing with this woman. Stubbornness seems to be a trait that runs in the family. “John already feels right at home here, don’t you John?”

“Don’t pressure him,” Sherlock says. He takes his own coat off and hands it to his mother, and John doesn’t miss the way Mrs. Holmes eyes rove over him with thinly masked concern.

“I’m fine, love,” John says, the endearment rolling off his tongue before he can stop it. Sherlock’s eyes flash to him briefly, wide and strangely sad before he begins to retreat back into himself, and that can’t happen, they need to do this _well,_ so—

John grabs his hand, threading their fingers together tightly. Sherlock stiffens, so John brushes his thumb gently over the thin tendons of his wrist until he sways a tiny bit closer.

“Come with me, boys, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying…”

***

Their room has only one bed.

“Sorry,” Sherlock is saying as soon as the door swings shut on Mrs. Holmes cheery wave. He stands before the enormous bed, eyes blown wide like saucers. “I’m sorry John, I didn’t realize she’d—I’m sorry. I’ll find you another room—“

“I meant what I said, Sherlock,” John tells him softly. “I’m going to do this as well as I can. If we were really…” he pauses. Clears his throat. “We would, wouldn’t we? So. I’ll just. Sleep over there on the edge or something. It’s big enough that we won’t touch, you don’t have to worry about that.”

Sherlock laughs sharply. “I’m _not_ worried about that.”

_Then why do you look so miserable?_

“Alright. Well. I’m not either, so, ta. Good.”

It was difficult to get used to sleeping alone when John went to Afghanistan. He was so used to the warm, soft, sleepy feel of another person wrapped around him that the first few weeks of his time there were the loneliest weeks of his life.

After he came back, he realized that things could get much, much lonelier.

He would be lying if he said he isn’t terrified. Terrified that he’s going to forget that this—John and Sherlock, Sherlock and John—isn’t real anymore, and never will be again. Terrified that it’s going to be like those last few months in Afghanistan spent waiting in agony for letters that just never came.

“Look, Sherlock,” John says. He leans heavily against his cane, needing all the support he can get before he embarks upon this conversation. “I’m trying my best here, but I need… Well, I need something to work with. You can’t look like you’ve seen a ghost every time I touch you.”

Sherlock sits slowly down, mattress squeaking loudly. His spine curls into a drooping parentheses. “I know. I’m just out of practice, I suppose,” he murmurs.

John steps closer. _You don’t have to be,_ he thinks.

“We both are,” he whispers.

Sherlock looks up at him.

God. He’s beautiful.

“Sherlock…” John whispers.

Someone raps loudly on the door and John stumbles backwards; his cane clatters to the ground, but his leg doesn’t give him any pain at all. Sherlock opens his mouth to say something smart and annoying but John interrupts him firmly.

“Come in!”

Mrs. Holmes’ head appears around the edge of the door. “Sorry to interrupt,” she says with a broad wink that makes John blush, “but I forgot to let you know that dinner is at seven.”

John thanks her and she leaves with another cheeky grin. He turns to Sherlock. “Well. We’ve got some time to kill before then if—Sherlock?”

But Sherlock brushes past him without a word, and is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m opting for shorter, more frequent chapters. Thoughts?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John sets his palm on Sherlock’s knee under the table, squeezing lightly, and Sherlock’s eyelashes flutter briefly closed. “I missed him too,” John murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst! Angst! Angst! But bedsharing too, so that makes up for it.

John lets him go. 

What is he supposed to do? To think, to feel, to  _ want _ ? Sherlock asked him here, and yet from the moment they stepped inside it has seemed like he’d rather John be anywhere but with him.

Sherlock regrets this. It’s glaringly clear. And John can’t really blame him.

_ She’s seen your picture. It wouldn’t work. _

Victor would have been the better option, there’s no doubt about it. In fact, Sherlock must be even more conscious of his mother’s feelings than John thought if he still hasn’t told her about… everything. This whole farce seems so unnaturally complicated—but then, Sherlock has always been one for drama. John doubts that that’s changed much over the past few years.

Maybe John should stage some sort of fake breakup over dinner, just so Sherlock can finally be free. Dump him in front of his family so that they’re angry with John instead of disappointed in Sherlock, and then leave and never, never,  _ never _ come back.

_ But you wouldn’t get to see him again, _ a tiny, rebellious part of John’s brain whispers.  _ And you want this one last chance to be near him. You know you want it. _

He does. He wants it. Has wanted every single minute of every single day for two years, if he’s honest. And that want has only doubled in size since that day four months ago when he came back, when he took a cab to Baker Street, when he saw… when he expected to be…

He thought Sherlock wanted it, too. And he was so very, very wrong.

Fucking hell. When did his life become so complicated?

_ When you left him _ , that same voice says, and John sinks to the edge of the mattress with his head in his hands.

***

Later, John finds him in the library. 

It took him a good fifteen minutes of wandering around some rather festive hallways before stumbling upon the room purely by chance, but as soon as he does, he knows Sherlock is in here. There’s something about the silence of it: too stagnant to be uninhabited. Held, like the lack of noise is trying too hard. Clearly Sherlock doesn’t want John to find him.

John steps inside.

It’s a lovely room. Every wall is lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of books, kept in immaculate condition and bound with leather or dark fabric or slick, shiny paper; sunlight slants in through a row of high, diamond-paned windows, drenching the little knot of overstuffed armchairs and low tables in the middle of the room with a cheerful glow.

Sherlock is curled tightly in one of these, his head bent awkwardly as he scours the pages of a tome that he has propped open on his crossed legs. It looks like it weighs more than he does—and as if it’s about to topple off his lap onto the floor.

John comes closer, surprised that Sherlock hasn’t snapped at him to go away yet, and then freezes when he realizes.

Sherlock is asleep.

His chest rises and falls shallowly as he breathes through slightly parted lips, and his dark lashes brush his pale cheeks with a delicate flutter. The strange angle he has his neck contorted into tells John that this isn’t a purposeful nap. No. Sherlock Holmes was so tired that he fell asleep in his mother and father’s library with a five stone book in his lap.

He looks so very young like this. As young as he looked all that time ago, smiling up at John in the middle of an empty classroom—and yet somehow older, too. More worn.

John doesn’t really know anything that’s happened to him for almost the past year. He doesn’t know what he hoped for, what made him sad, what made him smile. Who he’s friends with. He doesn’t even really know who he loves, not any more. John needs to know, suddenly and with a power that makes him kneel on the floor by Sherlock’s chair with his cane clumsily dropped to one side, that somebody loves this boy.

Nobody can ever come close to how much John did.  _ Does _ . But John wasn’t what Sherlock needed, so maybe that’s a good thing.

Carefully, he slides the book out of Sherlock’s light hold and shuts it softly.  _ Forensics: A Casebook.  _ Funny, infuriating, beautiful genius.

Sherlock stirs a little as John shifts on the floor, burrowing down into the fluffy cushion of the armchair so that his head rests at a more comfortable angle. John smiles to himself as he leans against the chair opposite Sherlock’s, stretching his legs out before him. He tips his head back, watching Sherlock out of half-closed eyes; he looks like a work of art while he sleeps, all soft, gentle edges. There’s a kind of muted Renaissance mood about him that’s revealed while Sherlock’s asleep, and John so rarely gets to see that. Besides, he needs to make sure Sherlock doesn’t wake up and run off again.

Sherlock murmurs something under his breath, wrapping his arms around himself, and John lets the warm sun wash over him.

***

_ London, 2010 _

_ “John.” _

_ It’s very late. John is stretched out upon the carpet before Sherlock’s fireplace and Sherlock is curled beside him, limp and warm and close. His curls tickle the bottom of John’s chin, and John smiles and pulls him closer. _

_ “Hm?” _

_ Sherlock is silent for a moment; the sound of their breathing is synchronized with the crackle of the fire, and the peace John feels floods him bone-deep. After a moment Sherlock shifts, lifting himself up on one arm and staring down at John with heavy-lidded eyes. _

_ “I don’t want you to go,” he says slowly. He sounds like he’s discovering a secret. His voice is honey, pouring through the spaces between them, and the light of the fire turns his bare skin gold. He blinks. Places his palm over John’s chest, and swallows. “I don’t… will you stay?” _

_ There’s a feeling swelling behind John’s ribs, and he’s afraid it’s too big to stay contained. His eyes are hot with it. _

_ “Yes Sherlock,” he whispers. He cups the side of Sherlock’s face and Sherlock leans into his palm, eyes fluttering closed. “I’ll stay.” _

_ *** _

When John opens his eyes, Sherlock is looming above him.

John doesn’t even react. This was a common enough occurrence when they were together, and his body remembers being with Sherlock just as completely as his mind does. He simply stares back, waiting for him to speak.

After a few seconds Sherlock sits back on his heels. His eyes are still enormous and searching, but his scrutiny seems a little less severe.

“I fell asleep,” he says.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t wake me up.”

“No.”

“Why?”

John raises his eyebrows. This is a very boring conversation, and Sherlock doesn’t like boring conversations—especially not ones that he already knows the outcomes of. “Really?” John asks, letting his eyes roam across Sherlock’s familiar features: forehead, nose, lips. “Can’t you deduce it?”

Sherlock huffs loudly. “Not everything is able to be deduced, John,” he mutters, and he doesn’t sound at all happy about it. “Especially not you.”

That’s something John’s never heard before; it sends his stomach soaring high into his throat. “Oh. Uh, well you looked like you needed it,” he says, shrugging. He feels strangely self-conscious, and he can’t decide why. “Still do, if I’m honest.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow into slits and he leans close again, bracing himself on all fours as he peers up at John. His breath dances across John’s skin, breaking him into a rash of chills that he fights valiantly to keep hidden. “So do you,” Sherlock says slowly.

“Makes sense,” says John. “I didn’t get a wink last night.”

It’s Sherlock’s turn to look surprised. “Because of me?” he asks, sounding almost excited by the prospect, and that’s just enough for John’s skin to start tingling with annoyance. 

“Yes, because of you,” he snaps. “And—“ he cuts himself of with a sharp intake of breath, reaching with one hand out for his cane and resolutely not meeting Sherlock’s gaze.

“And? What’s and? John?”

Shit, that was close. It’s not like Sherlock doesn’t know already (or maybe not, if it’s true that John “isn’t able to be deduced”) but there’s something about saying it out loud, something about letting the reality form into words on his tongue, that John is irrationally afraid of. He knows it isn’t anything to be ashamed of, he knows it’s not something he can help—but it’s as if he’s a child plagued by night terrors. His dreams are sometimes more vivid than his waking moments are, and he doesn’t want that dragged into existence. Not yet.

“John, what?” Sherlock prods, scrambling to his feet before John does and stretching a hand down to assist him. John pointedly ignores the offered limb, choosing instead to climb to his feet in the most awkward, bloody  _ painful _ way possible. He tries very hard to hide his wince, leaning heavily against his cane as he breathes out one long, slow breath.

“We should get ready for dinner,” John answers once he’s sure his voice won’t tremble. “Seven, I think your mum said?” He begins stomping out of the library, once more sure that Sherlock will follow. “We don’t wanna be late.”

“Maybe we do,” Sherlock insists, trotting to come up alongside John and watching him out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe she’ll think we were… snogging or something,” he adds at a mumble.

And John finds himself laughing, in spite of the situation he’s in. Sherlock’s always funny when he’s embarrassed, and John  _ loves _ embarrassing him. “Sure, yeah,  _ snogging,”  _ he drawls, shooting Sherlock a sly grin. “That’s absolutely what we’d have done with a few hours of free time two years ago.”

Sherlock trips over his own feet. “John!”

John laughs.

***

“Mycroft will be in tomorrow. He’s got a few things to finish up at work before he can leave,” Mrs. Holmes says, scooping yet another helping of potatoes onto the pile Sherlock hasn’t even touched.

“Oh joy to the world,” Sherlock says flatly. He fiddles with his fork, dragging the tines through the gravy on his plate and making a horrible screeching noise that’s giving John a headache. John wants to slap his hand.

“Do try to be nice to your brother, Sherlock,” Mr. Holmes instructs quietly. It’s one of the only things he’s said all evening. Getting a word in edgewise when one lives in a household full of super geniuses must be very difficult, and John finds that he rather sympathizes with him. “He’s a very busy man.”

“Yes, very busy kissing arse—“

“Sherlock!” Mrs. Holmes cuts in sharply as John buries his unseemly chuckle in a forkful of pot roast.

“I only deal in truth—“

“So, um, Mr. Holmes,” John cuts in quickly before either of the murderous-looking Holmes at this table actually does anything about the homicide in their gazes. “Sherlock tells me you have a greenhouse out back?”

Sherlock had, a long, long time ago. It’s taking quite a chance, bringing it up two years later, and Sherlock is staring at him in a way that’s completely not subtle at all, but if John had to guess…

“Yes I do!” Mr. Holmes says excitedly, face lighting up as he looks at John. “Are you interested in gardening? I can show you ‘round tomorrow afternoon if you’d like.”

“Ta very much,” John says. Sherlock is still staring at him, so John kicks his ankle lightly under the table. “And I am a bit, yeah. My mum kept a garden when Harry and I were kids, and I always loved helping her out.”

“Harry? Your sister?” Inquires Mrs. Holmes. When John looks a bit surprised she smiles, waving a hand in dismissal. “It’s just that Sherlock talked all about you, John. Daddy and I feel like we know you already, don’t we?” she says, looking at her husband until he nods and she can direct her attention back toward John. “He talked about you all the time.” Her smile turns a little bit sad and her voice lowers; she leans forward as if she’s imparting a grand secret. “Sherlock missed you so much while you were away.”

“Oh, I…” John turns to him, his chest tight. When he sees the look on Sherlock’s face—shocked, annoyed at his mother yes, but underneath it all so desperately sad—John can’t breathe. He sets his palm on Sherlock’s knee under the table, squeezing lightly, and Sherlock’s eyelashes flutter briefly closed. “I missed him too,” John murmurs.

Sherlock’s lips part, his breath quickening, and John just—he  _ can’t _ —can’t—he can’t help it.

Slowly, slowly, slow enough that Sherlock has ample time to pull away, John leans forward and Sherlock meets him in the middle, and  _ god _ John forgot how good he smells and how soft his lips feel and that lovely, happy little noise he makes when John kisses him…

It’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast. It shakes John to his core.

John pulls back first; he can’t look at Sherlock. The room is spinning wildly around them and his blood is pulsing like the undercurrent of a bass drum in his veins, sending pumps to his heart at increasingly fast speeds. Sherlock’s skin singes John’s palm through the fabric of his trousers, but John can’t remove his hand, either; he needs to keep that one modicum of contact, that tiny little illusion that things are alright.

Sherlock lets him.

***

The rest of the meal passes in a blurry, dizzy haze. John can’t remember a single word he said after that kiss as he and Sherlock mount the stairs leading to their shared room; he isn’t sure he wants to. The only words he can think are  _ you kissed him you kissed him KISSED HIM _ and he walks in time with the rhythm of them, an anchor in the whirlwind storm of his mind.

Sherlock walks ahead and a little to the right. He has been completely silent all evening, apart from those comments about Mycroft, and suddenly John’s brain switches gears.  _ He kissed you back he kissed you back he KISSED YOU BACK _ —

“Alright, John?” Sherlock asks him quietly.

John startles to attention. They’re somehow in their bedroom; John’s standing in the middle of the floor, staring blindly at the bedspread.  _ I want you to let me love you, _ John thinks. “Yeah. Yeah, fine, sorry. Just tired.”

Sherlock nods slowly, scratching the back of his head in an awkward move that John’s never seen from him before. He lifts his other arm halfway, and then stops in mid-gesture, letting it fall back to to his side. “I’ll just…” he points at the adjoining bathroom.

“What? Oh, yeah, sure, go ahead,” John babbles. “I’ll…” he makes a vague, flapping hand motion at the other side of the room where his duffel has appeared. “Out here, then. Yeah? Ok.”

John changes as quickly and efficiently as possible, forever grateful to his army training for instilling the skill of fast dressing in him. He pulls a t-shirt on over his head without glancing in the mirror; he doesn’t particularly fancy getting a look at the ugly knot of ripped, mostly-healed scar tissue marring the flesh there. He’s changed and sitting on the bed when Sherlock emerges from the bathroom.

And even in pyjamas, and even thinner and sadder, and even two years later: he still takes John’s breath away. It’s not even the sight of him. It’s just… everything. It’s him. It’s  _ Sherlock.  _ He’s lit from behind by the yellow bathroom light, and he looks smaller than usual in his worn, familiar dressing gown, and John wants to kiss him again. Not a quiet, polite brush of lips, no; John wants to, to, to  _ consume _ him, to take him by the shoulders and kiss into his skin all the nights he’d laid awake and wondered  _ why?  _ and make him understand that the only thing that kept John alive back there with an Afghan bullet in his shoulder was  _ Sherlock. _

_ It’s always you. _

John brushes his teeth, washes his hot face, and stares at himself in the clear mirror above the bathroom sink. He looks so much older than his twenty-five years. Battle eroded the youth from his face, and heartbreak etched new lines into the soft, young skin around his lips and eyes and forehead. He looks sad. He looks haunted. And Sherlock Holmes let John Watson kiss him today.

He should just stop thinking about it. Yeah, just. Stop.  _ Please. _

When John comes back into the bedroom Sherlock is flat on his back, the covers pulled up to his chin. He turns his head upon the pillow to look at John, and his are luminous in the half-light.

“You’re sleeping?” John asks. He’s nervous; he hasn’t slept by anyone’s side since Sherlock, not romantically. And this might not be romantic, but god, it feels that way.

Half of Sherlock’s mouth slides lazily into a smile. “A doctor told me I looked like I needed to,” he says softly. The timber of his tone sends shivers straight down John’s spine, and Sherlock follows him with his eyes as he crosses to the other side of the bed. His side of the bed. “I hear it’s wise to do what one’s doctor tells them to do.”

“Never used to listen to your doctor,” John remarks, pulling the blankets up under his chin. He’s on the furthest edge of the mattress possible, because while he isn’t dangerous while he dreams, he just doesn’t want to risk anything.

Sherlock is pensively quiet for a moment, watching John with hooded eyes. “No,” he says finally. “But I’m wiser now.”

They forgot to pull the curtains shut before getting into bed. Outside, snow begins to fall in fat, white flakes, and the skeleton branches of the bare trees rattle with the wind. The moon rests high and lonely at the pinnacle of the midnight blue sky.

John turns his back to Sherlock. “Goodnight,” he whispers.

Sherlock’s answer comes creeping up at the edge of John’s slumber, small and timid and low. “Goodnight, John.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You care vastly, John.” Sherlock’s eyes flicker up, down, up, down—and stay. They glimmer like the gossamer of a butterfly’s wing. “Even for those you have no obligation towards. I… thank you.”
> 
> John takes a drink of his hot chocolate, and the flavor rests thick and sweet on his tongue. “Well, I… it’s a job, isn’t it? And I want to do well in a job.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! I hope you all had a peaceful holiday, whether you celebrate Christmas or not. Obviously, this is a Christmas-themed fic, but I'm going to be posting it after the holidays anyway. I hope you'll all still be interested :D
> 
> Enjoy!

~~~~ The gentle whisper of someone else’s breath draws John reluctantly awake. 

His mind runs through a bizarrely complicated course of thoughts—he’s in Sherlock’s bed at Baker Street, he’s in his cot in Afghanistan and the wind is hissing through the sand around him—before arriving at the conclusion, all in the time it takes him to draw his own shuddering, early-morning gasp.

Sherlock’s mum and dad’s house. Christmas.

Sherlock is a slim, dark mound just a few inches from John, rising and falling rhythmically as he breathes. His face is half turned and buried in his pillow; the bright morning pours in through the open curtain and washes him in chilly light. His eyelashes cast shadows like cobwebs beneath his eyes.

And John wants to reach out to him. Would have, long ago—no. Long ago, they would have fallen asleep as close as John wishes they were right now, tangled in a hot, tight knot of limbs and pressing smiling lips to bare patches of skin.

But it’s different now. Now, if John trailed a finger down the bridge of Sherlock’s straight nose, or cupped his jaw and kissed him on the forehead…. well. That’s impossible, now. Although, John thinks with a wry jerk of his lips, he’s apparently more than welcome to kiss Sherlock in the name of whatever twisted charade they’re playing at, so hey, that’s something, right?

He lays there for a while, just watching the shifting light play over Sherlock’s restful features. John wishes that nothing would ever extend beyond this moment: a quiet bedroom, a rumpled bed, and Sherlock, warm and soft and pretty and alive. It’s enough to trick him into being content for these few minutes, and John thinks that if he had nothing more than this for the rest of his life, he would be closer to happy than he’s been in years.

But all things end; and Sherlock blinks open his eyes with quiet snuffle of breath, jaw working around a swallow, starshine eyes meeting John’s.

“Good morning,” John says. He thinks his voice might fracture some of the peaceful stillness surrounding them—wants it too, if he’s being honest, if only so he doesn’t have to wait for the inevitable change—but his words come out sounding far too gentle, far too muffled, far too almost-happy.

There is a smile on Sherlock’s lips, and John put it there.

It’s obvious that he isn’t quite awake yet. There’s a muzziness to the slow blinking of his eyes and the blissful tilt of his mouth that tells John he’s in that twilight zone between sleeping and waking, and the journey out is a long one. He shuffles a little closer to John on the mattress and John’s breath catches when he begins to feel the hot fanning of Sherlock’s breath against his chest.

“Gmorning, John,” Sherlock mumbles. His voice is raspy and deep with sleep, and it sends an entirely inappropriate shiver down the column of John’s spine.

Right now, he’s sure that he could move forward half an inch and gather Sherlock into his arms and he wouldn’t get any protest at all from the other man. And the fact that he even considers it is so terrifying that John sits up immediately, blanket falling to his waist as he scoots back against the headboard.

The gentle softness of the room snaps.

Sherlock blinks up at him in surprise—and John can pinpoint the exact moment that the last bits of foggy sleep clinging to him clear away. His eyes widen almost imperceptibly and he frowns, expression melding back into the same one it’s been in since he and John arrived here.  

“Sleep well?” John asks, but his voice sounds strained even to him. He rubs both palms over his dry eyes and hunches his spine a little bit, shivering as the coolness of the room brushes his bare arms and permeates the thin material of his t-shirt.

Sherlock hums a noncommittal affirmative. He rolls away from John with a loud, showy yawn, stretching his arms up above his head and then flopping them down on the other side of the bed dramatically. His curls are a riotous nest on the back of his head; they stick up like dandelion clocks, and John longs to smooth at them with his fingers, as ineffectual as that may be. He just wants to know the softness of them on his skin once more.

“Dreamt about Mycroft,” Sherlock says through another round of yawns that seem more genuine than the first. He rolls again, this time facing the ceiling with his eyes squinted shut and his arms stretch up above his head. “It was ghastly.”

“Mm, yeah I bet,” John says absently. A strip of Sherlock’s white stomach is visible under the hem of his t-shirt, and it’s one of the most distracting sights John’s ever been confronted with. “Slept through it pretty well, though.”

Sherlock tilts his head so he’s looking at John, one eye opening just wide enough to glare squintily up at him. “I can sleep through anything. It’s a learned skill.”

It’s true. Once, the fire alarm had gone off in the middle of the night and John had had to basically carry Sherlock out of the flat. It’s one of his fondest memories, for some unfathomable reason.

“Should try to be nice to Mycroft today,” John says through his own yawn. He slept better last night than he has in a very long while, and his body is unused to getting this much pure rest. “For your mum’s sake, if nothing else.”

“Oh,  _ god _ , John,” Sherlock moans, tossing one arm over his face and languishing in the most physically attractive display of brattines that John Watson has ever been privy to. “Not you too.”

John is unphased. “I like your mum, and I know you love her. It’s  _ Christmas,  _ Sherlock. Think how nice a gift that will be.”

“I’m her gift,” Sherlock mumbles.

“Please tell me you aren’t actually going with that,” John says flatly.

Sherlock moves  _ again _ , this time to his stomach, where he pushes himself up on his elbows and rests his chin on his hands, regarding John pitifully. The blankets are nothing more than a tangled wad around his legs. “I’m what I always give her for Christmas,” he says. He manages to sound haughty at the same time as look rather adorable, and John feels so torn that he almost laughs.

_ “Sherlock Holmes _ ,” he says instead, massaging the bit of headache that’s starting to gather between his eyes. “Hell. What about your dad?”

He looks down. Takes in the almost guilty way Sherlock is staring at him from under his lashes.

John sighs.

“Alright, ok, I know what we’re doing today, then,” he says with a resolute nod. “Hope you didn’t have any plans, because I’m cancelling them. Think you can get us back into town without making one of Mycroft’s minions do it?”

Sherlock is still for the first time since he woke up; his expression is unreadable. “Yes,” he says finally, watching John with unblinking eyes. “I’m sure that I can.”

“Good,” says John. He lets himself sink more fully into the pillows at the small of his back, crossing his hands over his stomach. “I should probably get something for your parents, too,” he says musingly. He really hadn’t ever considered that, but it only makes sense; if he and Sherlock were really dating, he’d do  _ something _ other than sleep in his parent’s house for a week and eat their food. “And Mycroft, maybe…”

“John.”

“Hm?”

Sherlock opens his mouth as if to speak, and there’s something heavy and dark in his gaze that takes John’s breath right out of his lungs. The air shifts around them; John is poised to fall forward or backward off of this precipice that he’s been existing on for, god, _ so long. _

And in half an instant, he sees that Sherlock’s changed his mind: that something has looked him in the eye and yelled  _ back! back! stop!  _ and that he obeyed it.

“I suppose we’re going shopping, then,” Sherlock murmurs. And that’s that.

***

They go downstairs together. There’s a sort of pact of solidarity that’s always existed between them and that they’ve never had to question; John remembers going into Chemistry exams side-by-side, sticking to each other like glue at crowded parties, late-night study sessions that always eventually ended with some lovely kissing on the floor. It’s both heartwarming and heart wrenching to see it still so blatantly displayed.

Wordlessly, Sherlock leads John into the kitchen instead of last night’s dining room. He follows.

It’s the biggest, grandest kitchen John’s ever seen: everything is done up in chrome and clean porcelain, and the surfaces gleam. But there’s that same warm, home-like comfort in this room as their is in every other area of Sherlock’s house that John has been into yet, and he doesn’t feel as cowed by the grandeur as he feared he might be.

Mrs. Holmes is stood at the hob, frying something in a large pan that smells absolutely delicious. She looks up as they enter, smile on her face and strands of white hair scattered a bit haphazardly around her temples, and begins scooping eggs onto the place settings at the table she ushers them towards.

“Good morning, boys,” she says. “How was your night?”

John slides into one of the wooden chairs pulled up to the sturdy looking table, leaning his cane against the leg of the table as Sherlock sits down gracefully beside him. “Good, thank you,” he says when it looks like Sherlock isn’t going to deign that with a response. He makes sure to give her an extra smile since her youngest son is being so oddly prickly. “We slept like logs.”

“John snored,” said Sherlock, reaching across John for the plate of toast. He slathers it in jam, ignoring the grimace John shoots him. “He only snores when he’s dead asleep.”

“First of all, eat something more than toast, we have a big day ahead of us,” John says, “Second of all, which one of us did Mrs. Hudson think was dying in our sleep because of our snoring? Oh that’s right.  _ You. _ ” He grins at Sherlock as Sherlock sniffs dismissively, taking a bite of eggs. “Watch it, wanker.”

“What’s this big day I’m hearing about?” asks Mr. Holmes, shuffling into the kitchen in his dressing gown and slippers. Mrs. Holmes presents her cheek for a kiss which he bestows with enough of a smacking noise to make Sherlock glare sullenly into his half eaten toast.

“Sherlock and I—”

“John’s  _ making me _ —”

“—are going into town—”

“—go  _ shopping—” _

“—to get some last minute shopping done,” John finishes, completely ignoring Sherlock and his grumbling. He’s quite good at that. The noise is almost  _ soothing, _ and oh my god there’s something seriously wrong with him.

Mrs. and Mr. Holmes look an odd mixture of amused, surprised, and pleased.

“You got him to do something?” Mrs. Holmes asks. She sounds admiring. Sherlock scoffs loudly, and shoves half a piece of toast into his mouth.

John smiles at him. He’s sure he’s letting every emotion flicker across his features, he’s sure he’s horribly transparent—but he just can’t muster up enough self respect to care. Somewhere between making their plans and coming down here, John must have made the subconscious decision that he is going to enjoy this day. Maybe that’s unwise, and maybe that’s unrealistic, but he’s at least going to  _ try. _

And so John allows himself to smile at Sherlock as fondly as his features seem to want to. “Yep,” he says. In a move that makes him question whether he’s brave or just plain stupid he lifts a hand, ruffling it through Sherlock’s curls affectionately.

Yeah. They’re just as lovely as he remembered. Even better since he hasn’t scratched gently through them for two years.

Sherlock’s eyes flutter shut; he pushes up into John’s touch like an overgrown cat, lips lifting into a very small smile. John’s heart beats wildly.

“Impressive, John, I must say,” Mr. Holmes remarks.

Sherlock doesn’t even spare him one scathing answer.

***

_ London, 2010. _

_ “What’s this?” _

_ John likes being the romantic one. He likes buying Sherlock flowers sometimes, and leaving them in a vase beside his bed for him to see first thing upon waking up. He likes holding his hand on the Tube, and kissing his cheek in public just to see him blush. He likes whispering how beautiful Sherlock is into the skin of his shoulder when Sherlock is stretched out beneath him, over and over again until neither of them can take it any longer. He likes making Sherlock feel good. Oh, how he likes it. _

_ And Sherlock likes it too. It’s obvious that he does. He flushes and smiles and kisses John back. He’s  _ happy _ , he’s so very, very happy, and John never wants him to be anything else. _

_ “It’s a gift,” John says. _

_ Sherlock glances up at him in confusion. He’s sitting in what has come to be John’s armchair, dressing gown draped around his thin shoulders, and staring at the brightly-wrapped parcel that John just dropped in his lap. “It’s not Christmas anymore,” he says. _

_ “It’s not a Christmas gift,” John answers promptly. He grins, getting to his knees next to Sherlock’s chair and taking one of Sherlock’s slender hands in his own. He kisses each knuckle until Sherlock giggles softly, the lines of confusion smoothing out from his forehead. _

_ “What kind of a gift is it, then, John Watson?” asks Sherlock softly. He smiles down at John, and the reflection of the fairy lights he hasn’t taken down yet are refracted in his pupils like a million depthless galaxies. _

_ “Hm,” says John. He kisses the delicate skin inside Sherlock’s wrist, and Sherlock’s breath catches. “It’s a John Watson Is Very Very Fond of Sherlock Holmes gift,” he says. _

_ Sherlock watches him with those luminous eyes. He traces the side of John’s cheek with one long finger, and John’s eyelids flutter shut and open, shut and open. “Sherlock Holmes is very fond of John Watson, too, you know,” he says. _

_ John kisses him on the knee, since it’s the most readily available bit of him, and Sherlock giggles again. “I know,” John says. He rests his chin on Sherlock’s thigh. “Open it.” _

_ There’s a way that Sherlock opens gifts, and it makes John’s chest hurt. He peels back each layer of paper like they all hold their own mystery, taking his time and unfolding the wrapping with all the care in the world. There’s something reserved about it, something hesitant. Almost like he doesn’t really expect anything to be there. _

_ John wants to promise him that he will always, always be there. _

_ When Sherlock reaches the gift he freezes, lips parting around a gasp that never comes. He stares and stares and stares, eyes enormous, and John panics when Sherlock lifts a shaking hand to his mouth and moisture glasses over the electric brightness of his eyes. _

_ “Oh, no, sweetheart,” John says, reaching for him even though he’s kneeling. He cups Sherlock’s face in his hands, running his thumbs beneath Sherlock’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, I’m sorry…” _

_ “John,” says Sherlock, voice a whisper. He surges forward, wrapping his long arms around John’s neck and kissing him so very tenderly that John almost can’t comprehend this strange, sweet yearning that’s building in his breast. “Thank you,” Sherlock murmurs as he kisses John over and over again, lips soft and warm. “Thank you, John. Thank you.” _

_ And afterwards, when they’re both curled up in the armchair, John picks up the gift from where it’s been quickly placed on the end table. He brings it close so that Sherlock can see it from his position nestled against John’s shoulder, and they look. _

_ It’s a picture of them on Christmas day. Mrs. Hudson took it right in the middle of everything without either of them noticing. Sherlock stands in the middle of the entranceway leading from the kitchen to the sitting room, and John leans against him, lips pressed firmly against Sherlock’s as Mike makes himself helpful by dangling a piece of mistletoe above their heads. Sherlock is smiling, beaming into the kiss; his cheeks are stained a rosy red. John grips the lapels of his suit with both hands, straining upwards on tiptoe to reach him. Around them, fairy lights wink like millions of stars. _

_ “I love it,” Sherlock whispers. _

_ And John thinks,  _ I love you.

***

They’re good at this. At throwing meaningless, inconsequential words back and forth between them and pretending that everything’s ok. They snark at each other, they tease and cajole and nag, and John stares at Sherlock and Sherlock stares at John and neither of them says what they really want to.

It’s painful, but John’s addicted to it. He’s addicted to  _ Sherlock _ , more accurately, and he’ll get his fix in whatever way it’s served, thank you.

So they talk and talk without every getting below the surface of things that need to be said, and it’s… fine.

Sherlock drives the car.

“Didn’t know you knew how,” John remarks after a quarter hour of silence that feels like hell. “To drive, I mean.”

Sherlock glances at him, eyebrows raised. The collar of his coat is popped up, and it frames his cheekbones elegantly. “I know how to do lots of things,” he says.

“Yeah, how to identify a corpse from its… I don’t know, its bloody little toe, but I just figured you never had to learn how to  _ drive.  _ Seems too boring for you.”

Sherlock looks affronted, and the expression makes John laugh. “I do plenty of things that are  _ boring, _ ” he says indignantly. “I am, for instance, chauffeuring your sorry arse into town so we can buy dull things for people who will give them away as soon as we’ve left the house.”

John grins. “Fair enough, I suppose,” he says. He watches the scenery stream by in a blur of white for a moment, testing the silence cautiously. It’s less stiff than moments before, and that’s good.

“Also,” says Sherlock presently, sounding as if he’s mused upon this for quite a while, “I have never identified a corpse by its little toe—bloody or otherwise.”

John waves a dismissive hand. “Seems like something you’d do,” he says, shrugging. “Stupid genius.”

The car swerves.

“Sherlock!” John says sharply, jolting forward in his seat and grabbing Sherlock’s upper arm on reflex. Sherlock gets the car back under control in a matter of seconds, but not without a chorus of angry beeping accompanying them. John’s heart is pounding. “What the hell?”

“That was an oxymoron,” Sherlock says. He’s staring straight ahead, and his arm beneath John’s hand tense. His jaw is set; he looks embarrassed.

“Yeah, well, no need to crash the car over it,” John says. He can’t seem to make himself stop touching Sherlock. His hand slides from his bicep to his forearm, and he squeezes lightly. “I’ll watch my rhetorical devices, yeah?”

Sherlock makes a rather strangled sounding noise. His arm is thin beneath his heavy woolen coat, bone sharp beneath a layer of muscle, and John’s heart won’t stop racing; he’s fairly sure it’s not because of the near miss.

John wants to tell Sherlock to park the car, and then climb over the middle and into Sherlock’s lap and kiss him and kiss him…

“We’re here,” Sherlock says shortly. His voice sounds like the snap of a whip; taught, and ready to crack at any moment.

John can understand that feeling quite well.

***

“Does your dad wear hats?”

Sherlock moans loudly, earning a few curious glances from the shoppers around them and a stern glare from John. He staggers forward, gives John a baleful look, and then drapes himself along John’s front in a very dramatic and heart-stoppingly  _ close _ movement.

“Ok,” John says, sighing. His voice shakes. “Alright.” Sherlock’s arms hang loosely around John’s waist and his forehead rests in the dip between John’s shoulder and his neck; the warm, heavy weight of him is making John’s chest ache. “Just go wait outside, Sherlock,” John says softly. Of their own accord, his hands lift; he runs them gently up and down the length of Sherlock’s spine, across his scapula, along his hip bones. Sherlock shiver-sighs against him.

“It’s cold outside,” Sherlock mumbles.

“I’ll be ten minutes,” John says cajolingly. “And I’ll buy you hot chocolate after.”

Sherlock’s breath is warm on John’s skin, and he’s fragile and clingy in John’s arms, and John is confused and John—John loves him.

“ _ Fine, _ ” Sherlock says, sighing long and low. John grips him just a bit tighter and ignores the knowing look the girl at the counter is giving him.

“Good man,” John says, stepping back. Sherlock sways a little with the force of John’s departure, eyes round and light. “I’ll be quick.”

Sighing again, Sherlock stoops and picks up the three shopping bags they’ve already acquired. He shoots John one last glance over his shoulder as he stomps towards the front of the shop. “You’d better be.”

John’s skin feels cold and empty.

He winds his way through the crowded store in a daze. Why did Sherlock  _ do that?  _ There’s nobody here to observe them; they don’t have to put on a show here, or lead anyone in a lie.

As John pays for the items he’s purchasing, he decides to just. Stop. Thinking about it. If he wants to stay sane—and he emphatically does—then that’s what he needs to do.

Just stop.

“Will that be all for you today?” the woman ringing him up says cheerily, pulling John out of his reverie. He blinks at her, caught in the middle of handing over his card.

“Oh. Um, yes, thanks… actually.”

Noooooo. Bad idea. Isn’t it?

Alright. If they were really dating, John would absolutely get Sherlock a gift, no doubt about it. Even if they were just friends. So it makes sense, and he wants things to make sense very very badly.

And this is just… perfect.

“Sorry,” John says, running his fingers along the softness of it. “One more thing…”

***

Sherlock sips at his hot chocolate delicately, steam billowing up into his pink-cheeked face. His coat is draped over the back of his chair, and the dark green jumper he’s wearing makes him look young and small and soft. “This was… not terrible,” he mumbles, tracing a finger against the grain of the wooden table.

They’re in a little cafe that Sherlock scoped out while John was shopping, bags stuffed under their chairs as they sip at a pair of decadent hot chocolates John bought for them. It’s crowded and atmospheric in here: holly and evergreen is draped over every available surface, a red bell hangs above the door, the scent of cinnamon floats aromatically through the warm air. That contented feeling from this morning is back in spades, and John basks in it.

John smiles. “Thank you,” he says.

Sherlock looks up at him, setting his mug down carefully. “No, John,” he says, voice low. There’s a shift, a bend, a change between them like a ripple in silk. “I should be thanking you.”

“Oh.” John swallows against a drying throat, shifting in his chair and rubbing at the back of his neck that feels suddenly hot. “You’re welcome—“

“You care vastly, John.” Sherlock’s eyes flicker up, down, up, down—and stay. They glimmer like the gossamer of a butterfly’s wing. “Even for those you have no obligation towards. I… thank you.”

John takes a drink of his hot chocolate, and the flavor rests thick and sweet on his tongue. “Well, I… it’s a job, isn’t it? And I want to do well in a job.”

Immediately he wishes he’d never spoken. Sherlock meets his eyes and looks so sad for a moment that it tugs something deep inside John; he stretches his arm across the table and grips Sherlock’s hand in his.

“You’re welcome, Sherlock,” he says softly. He thinks:  _ I don’t know why I can’t stop caring about you.  _ He thinks:  _ I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ok again. _

He holds Sherlock’s hand, and doesn’t let go.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not dawn yet; between the slits of half-opened curtain, John sees nothing but inky blackness outside, not even a moon present to lend light to the snow. When Sherlock lifts his head, the only illumination in the room is the round, pale orbs of his eyes, like two pieces of the Milky Way captured here for John to fall into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! You'll notice a rating change from now on. No smut, but some quite intense kissing, so I thought I had better be safe than sorry. Special thanks to FinAmour for looking over this chapter for me and eliminating all those embarrassing typos. You're the BEST<3
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s just that Sherlock is warm, warm, warm. 

He’s a heavy, clinging weight pressing John down into the mattress; pressure from his slim hips, one thigh, his cheek where it rests on John’s stuttering chest. One long arm is thrown across John’s waist like an iron band, tight and growing tighter with each minute shift of John’s shoulders. John doesn’t dare open his eyes.

Last night, they came home in a car too full of silence. Mycroft had arrived by then, resplendent in a grey suit and permanent sneer, and Sherlock had vanished for parts unknown—leaving John, of course, to spend the rest of the evening with Sherlock’s family.

Last night, John had eaten dinner at a table which gained one Holmes and lost another. The empty chair at John’s left had been a glaring hole.

He hadn’t been here when John climbed into bed around nine, after an hour of distracted conversation with the Holmes family. He hadn’t been here when John’s eyes at last fallen shut, heavy with staring up at the shadowed ceiling in worry. He’s here now.

If John dredges up the recesses of his sleep-dimmed memory, he can recall the shifting of the mattress signalling Sherlock’s arrival. The tugging of blankets, the situation of long limbs. Quiet murmurs in the darkness…

John used to wake up like this every night, two years ago. Nestled in their bed, lanky detective tossed over him like a particularly clingy blanket, and happiness so golden and strong within him that it threatened to bubble up and out and over. He would run his fingers through the downy-fine strands of hair at Sherlock’s temples and whisper soft greetings under his breath until Sherlock stirred awake, sloe-eyed and gentle and cloying—

“ _ John…” _

John doesn’t stop running his fingers through Sherlock’s curls, not even when he realizes with some surprise that he’s begun. Sherlock radiates sleep-warmth through his thin cotton pyjamas, a far cry from his usually chilly exterior; his hair is silk against John’s palm, and his skull is infinitely precious cupped in John’s hand. Sherlock presses the tip of his nose into John’s throat and hums, and the sounds travels through the layers of cloth and skin and bone between them with urgent precision.

The dip of Sherlock’s lower back is familiar under John’s questing touch. He strokes at the cotton-clad muscles, trails his fingertips up over ridged vertebrae, breathes in harshly at the promise of smooth, soft skin beneath.

“Sorry to wake you,” John whispers. He keeps his eyes firmly closed, and every movement they make against each other is magnified tenfold with the deprivation of this single sense. The whisper of fabric on fabric is louder than John’s own voice. “Go back to sleep.”

Sherlock draws in a long, waking breath. His ribs expand with it beneath John’s palm, and John explores the stark intricacies of them without reserve. He’s awake, but he’s floating in a muffled dream world that almost seems unreal.

“John,” Sherlock says once more, lips moving close enough to John’s chest that he feels the almost-there tingle of them. Sherlock doesn’t bother to whisper—but his voice is as dark and still as the night around them, and John sinks willingly into the sound. “Don’t be angry,” Sherlock says huskily, tightening his arm around John’s waist.

It’s the last thing John expected to hear him say. A familiar phrase—one heard often after an experiment gone awry, or a meal skipped, or yet another date turned high speed chase—and yet so out of place in this context that John opens his eyes.

It’s not dawn yet; between the slits of half-opened curtain, John sees nothing but inky blackness outside, not even a moon present to lend light to the snow. When Sherlock lifts his head, the only illumination in the room is the round, pale orbs of his eyes, like two pieces of the Milky Way captured here for John to fall into.

“I’m…” John’s hand slides from the back of Sherlock’s head to the side. He cups his cheek carefully, and his heart flutters as Sherlock leans in to the touch. “I’m not angry, Sherlock,” John whispers.

Sherlock doesn’t smile. “Not yet,” he murmurs. He tilts forward, rests close to John. They breathe—hot and heavy—against each other’s mouths, and John’s lips part to taste Sherlock’s air on his pallet. He’s dizzy, flat on his back under the boy he loves. The boy who broke him when nothing else could.

God help him, he isn’t angry.

“Sherlock,” he gasps like a punch to the sternum, and Sherlock moans and drops forward and angles their mouths together and kisses John, kisses him with parted lips that drag over John’s hungry mouth in a way that feels like bruising and saving and aching and loving all over again, kisses John with a hand on his waist and narrow hips pressing close, close, close—

John lets him. John wants him to—John  _ wants him.  _ He tangles the fingers of his left hand deep in Sherlock’s curls and doesn’t mind the way Sherlock steals all the breath away from him. There’s nowhere else he’d rather his breath go, anyway. His lungs hitch, falter, stall—Sherlock scratches his blunt fingernails against the bit of scalp right above John’s ear and parts his lips, and his velvet-soft tongue slips into John’s mouth with gentle, starving licks.

John groans, gut-deep and wrenching, as the heated slickness of Sherlock invades him. He’s clutching at Sherlock’s shirt with one hand, twisting the fabric tight in his fist as Sherlock Holmes bites at his bottom lip with needle sharp teeth; he’s struggling to stay afloat in this wash of longed-for sensation that floods him, swarms him, buries him deep and far and impossible to reach.

“Sherlock,  _ fuck _ , Sherlock,” John pants nonsensically as Sherlock rolls his hips once, twice, three times, squirming on top of John as his kiss dissolves into something slick and wet and messy. Without thinking—because how can he, when his brain is nothing more than one single word beating at the confines of his skull over and over again, a steady pound of  _ Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock _ —John grips Sherlock's ass in his right hand, tugs him closer—

And Sherlock  _ keens _ and  _ fuck _ John remembers that noise, he remembers it so well—and Sherlock isn’t close enough, John thinks wildly as Sherlock completely melts against him, mouth searing and pliant as he smears frantic kisses across the span of John’s lips, Sherlock could still get up at any second and leave John here, vulnerable and aching and wanting on this bed.

“Don’t,” John breathes brokenly, not really sure what he’s saying anymore. Sherlock is making tiny, high noises on top of him, fingers scrabbling at any part of John they can reach, and if John could hold him tight enough to consume him, he absolutely would. “Don’t go.”

Sherlock opens his mouth, and the first half of John’s name comes out on a sob.

John hooks one ankle around Sherlock’s calf and flips them.

The bed creaks. Sherlock gasps, and John grips his shoulders as he crawls closer, fingers coming in contact with the smooth skin just above his loose collar.

Against the white pillowcase, Sherlock’s hair is as inky as the night outside. His irises are as bright as fever dreams, blue like glass around the depth of his pupils. Sharply he pants through swollen lips, and the redness of them is almost garish against his snow-white skin. “ _ John, _ ” Sherlock moans, low and slow and rumbling.

“Sherlock,” John whispers. He mouths at the diamond sharp edge of Sherlock’s jaw… slides his hands slowly down the length of his arms. Sherlock’s eyes slam shut: he bites off another moan as John pins Sherlock’s wrist above his head with one hand, using the other to hold his head in place as John dips down and crashes their mouths together.

The heat that pools low in John’s stomach is blood red and boiling. It feels— _ god _ —so  _ fucking good _ to have Sherlock here in his hold, here fighting for breath beneath John and meeting his kisses with more desperation than John has ever been touched with.

John kisses Sherlock’s thundering carotid, lips parted and touch firm, just the way Sherlock likes it. John remembers everything about touching him—remembers it like the words of a favorite song imprinted upon his skin, remembers it like it’s the most important thing he could ever be tasked with. The way Sherlock’s body arches under John’s at the lightest touches to his neck, his wrists, that shadowed hollow under his jaw.

“John,” Sherlock rasps, voice ragged and ripped and torn, and John drags his mouth up the side of Sherlock’s neck, along his jaw, across his swollen lips. “ _ Please _ .”

***

_ London, 2012. _

_ The sky is foggy and grey, and it’s raining when John steps into the cold London air. _

_ John eyes sting. His throat is scraped raw. _

_ He hasn’t seen this city in nearly two years. He hasn’t smelled the wet pavement, the accumulated exhaust, the tang of too many people in one place. Hasn’t fought his way through crowds, hasn’t struggled to stay upright with a cane he isn’t used to, hasn’t lugged a duffel bag full of all his poses, hasn’t seen a street that’s not war torn bone dry for longer than he can remember. _

_ Breath settling in a cold, stale place in his throat, John stills. He closes his eyes against the onslaught of sensation and tips his head towards the sky. Moisture beads upon his cheeks and eyelashes; he grips his cane with white knuckles. _

_ Sherlock is in London, and the air thrums with this fact. _

_ John misses him so, so much. He thinks that if only he can see him again—hold him in his arms and kiss his forehead and tell him just how very lonely it’s been—everything will be ok. It won’t matter that Sherlock hasn’t answered any of John’s letters in over three months, it won’t matter that he doesn’t know how broken John is now, it won’t matter. Not any of it. _

_ John wants to tell Sherlock that he loves him. _

_ Hailing a cab is more difficult than John remembers. Nobody seems to notice him—a shattered vet, a boy with more years on his face than he’s earned with his breath—and he’s jostled aside a few times before finally a cab stops for him. _

_ Climbing in is… not easy. John’s cheeks flame with embarrassment as the cabby avoids his gaze. _

_ “221 Baker Street,” John mutters. The words get half trapped in his mouth, sending a full-body shudder through him. He hasn’t spoken them aloud in so long, and he almost sobs with the rightness of it. _

_ The ride to Sherlock’s flat is long and silent. John still isn’t well: remnants of fever ravage him still, making him weaker than he’s ever been. He’s grey and too thin. His hands shake. And Sherlock—beautiful, gorgeous Sherlock—likely won’t recognize him anymore. _

_ Might not want him anymore, either. But John tries not to let himself dwell on that. He hasn’t been able to if he wanted to survive. _

_ It was thoughts of Sherlock that kept him alive during the long, delirious weeks he spent high out of his mind and barely clinging to life with both hands. Fever-muddled dreams of Sherlock’s smile distracted him as his shoulder was butchered, warm echoes of Sherlock’s familiar voice lulled him into a fitful sleep. _

_ It’s likely that John would have given up if not for Sherlock Holmes. John needs to tell him. _

_ The cab turns onto Baker Street and John leans forward in his seat. He’s dizzy; his head hurts; he needs Sherlock so desperately— _

_ 221 comes into view and John bites back a half-formed cry, clutching the back of the seat in front of him so tightly that he’s sure his fingers are bruised. The cab stalls in traffic, searching for a place to park, and John stares and stares and stares and stares and— _

_ The door opens. _

_ Sherlock steps out, and John can’t help the tears that slide down his cheeks, hot and acrid and wanting. He looks… god, so beautiful. Tall and slender and elegant in his posh coat, dark curls soft and gentle around his stunning face. He’s talking to someone standing just inside the door, looking up a little bit, hands shoved in his pockets. John barely keeps himself from running across traffic and clutching Sherlock to him. _

_ “Two years, Sherlock,” John whispers, unable to help himself. “And I loved you for all of it.” _

_ Sherlock takes a step back and his companion steps into the front stoop before him. John stiffens slightly. _

_ Victor Trevor. Sherlock’s ex. _

_ It happens in slow motion. _

_ Victor bends; he takes the lapels of Sherlock’s coat in both hands and tugs him close. He smiles down at Sherlock as Sherlock follows the lead of his hold, and then he presses their lips together with firm, deliberate accuracy. _

_ Sherlock doesn’t pull away. His spine melts from ramrod straight into a gentle C, and his shoulders slump. On the pavement, his feet shuffle. _

_ “You ok, mate?” _

_ Time snaps back into proper speed with a slam, leaving John reeling back against the seat with a ragged gasp. He’s shaking, shaking, shaking. _

_ “Turn,” he says, not even bothered that his voice is wet with something ugly—ugly as loneliness, ugly as betrayal, ugly as heartbreak. “Go—I can’t—“ _

_ The cabby listens. _

_ Somehow, John remembers the address of his government-issued bedsit. He goes out later and buys a bottle of whiskey with his pension. It’s the first thing he’s purchased since leaving Afghanistan. _

_ The night is long, and the night is brutal. _

_ *** _

After, Sherlock presses John’s face into the crook of his neck with one huge hand and John curls into him willingly. Sherlock’s skin is flushed and clammy, and John shuts his eyes tightly as he listens to hurried beating of his heart. He’s shaking delicately beneath John, tremors running through his long limbs, so John smoothes his palm over Sherlock’s bare ribs and plants a messy kiss in his suprasternal notch until he begins to settle.

They shouldn’t have done that.

It’s no better than what Sherlock did to John with Victor. This wasn’t part of their ruse—couldn’t have been. Nobody knows they’ve done this, and nobody will. Swallowing back a faint feeling of nausea, John kisses Sherlock in that same place once more, and lifts his head.

Sherlock is a mess. His hair stands up on end in tangled, sweaty clumps; red patches bloom across his neck, his clavicle, his cheeks, his chest; his eyes are shut tight, and the furrow across his brow is so deep that John can’t help but reach up and smooth it away with the tips of his fingers.

“Sherlock,” John says softly. He traces light circles over Sherlock’s rib cage until at last his eyes drift open, wide and unfocused and searingly blue. They meet John’s slowly, dazedly. John strokes Sherlock’s cheek with the edge of his thumb.

Sherlock’s bruised lips part to speak. All that comes out is a quiet, breathy whine.

John’s heart is going to explode from his chest. He’s sure of it.

“Sherlock, what about…” he swallows tightly and pushes a clump of hair out of Sherlock’s eyes. His hands are both absolutely steady. “What about Victor? You can’t do this to him,” he whispers.

Sherlock’s brow furrows again. He looks confused and a little bit terrified, and John wishes so much that they didn’t have to have this conversation. “John?” Sherlock asks, sounding lost.

“I don’t think I have to spell it out for you,” John says. His voice is sharp, snapping. He’s combatting the vast, empty space growing within him, and he’s… angry. Sad. “He’s not going to like the fact that you and I—”

“John?” Sherlock says again. His mouth hangs open a little bit. His hand slips down to the back of John’s neck where it settles, a warm, flighty weight that’s entirely too comforting. It takes every bit of John’s willpower not to fall back against him, to pull the blankets up over their heads, to close his eyes… “I don’t know what you mean.”

John takes in a long, shaky breath. There are tiny beads of sweat collected like raindrops along Sherlock’s hairline; he touches them with his forefinger, doing everything he can just to avoid looking down into Sherlock’s eyes. “You’re dating him, yeah?”

Sherlock is silent beneath John. Still. “Not anymore,” he says after a pause that lasts an age. “He’s… well, you know. John, I—I don’t understand.”

John’s gaze flickers down to Sherlock’s. Their eyes catch, meet, hold. The flush that had worked its way into Sherlock’s cheeks is gone, replaced by the same pallor he’s had all week. John wants to kiss him again. “You broke up,” he says, voice dry and scratchy in his throat.

“Yes,” Sherlock says immediately. He barely allows John any time to finish his words—speaks right over the end of John’s sentence, words tripping and tangling together in a voice that’s unstable. “So this is—well, fine, John. I. Don’t. Mind if you don’t mind. You know.”

It’s still a terrible idea. John knows himself, he knows his heart. There’s no way he can do this and not get even more attached than he already is. God, already he can’t take his hands off of him: can’t stop running his palms up planes of Sherlock’s stomach, tangling his fingers through Sherlock’s hair.

He’s falling hard and fast, just like the first time.

“I—” says John, closing his eyes briefly before opening them once more. He clears his throat. “I don’t mind.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth tugs into a smile. John covers it with his own.

***

When they wake up, the morning sun is streaming through the curtains in pale yellow glory.

John is completely entangled in Sherlock: arms and legs and hips and hair. He smells sweet and a little bit salty, and his breath is even and short. Awake, then.

“Good morning,” Sherlock says quietly.

John allows himself a few more moments to simply rest. He’s flat on his back, arms wound around Sherlock’s waist; their legs are a knot beneath the ruined blankets. He can tell he’s being monitored, watched, scrutinized—and he doesn’t care. It’s par for the course with Sherlock Holmes. Sleep with him, and you’re automatically consenting to being studied every morning. A fairly good compromise, John thinks.

“Morning,” he murmurs. He arches his spine until it pops, and he doesn’t let go of Sherlock. His eyes open, squinting against the bright sun.

Sherlock’s curls are framed in light, turning them into some sort of fiery golden halo. John can’t see his features properly yet; he shifts his head on the pillow, and the delicate rasping of hair against cotton fills his ears.

“You slept late,” Sherlock says. It isn’t an accusation, it isn’t humor—it’s simply an observation. A data point, probably, John thinks with a smile. God. He never thought he’d miss being an experiment.

“Hm, yeah, well,” John mutters, rubbing little circles over Sherlock’s bare scapula. He grins. “Somebody kept me up late.”

Sherlock ducks his head with a blush, and John turns and meets his lips halfway.

This kiss is slow, meandering, malleable. Nothing like the harsh desperation of last night, but just as beautiful. Sherlock’s lips are a little bit dry and they’re still red from their previous kiss; John wants to taste them in every possible way.

John lingers as long as he can, coming back in and back in and back in until Sherlock, laughing under his breath, slides off of him. He lands on his side and stares at John, one arm still draped across his bare stomach.

They breathe.

Sherlock is blatant in his study of John. His eyes rove across John’s features with agonizing slowness. They drift down his neck, across his chest. They linger at his shoulder; the gnarled, twisted knot of angry skin.

“Nobody’s ever…” John hesitates for half a second, and then Sherlock raises himself up on one elbow, lowers his lips to John’s scar, and kisses it.

John’s heart clenches. He reaches for Sherlock blindly, holding his arm in a gentle hand. Sherlock’s lips rest there, warm and soft, and John forces the next breath of air into his lungs. And the next, and the next, and the next.

“Nobody’s ever seen that before,” John says. His voice cracks halfway through the sentence, but Sherlock doesn’t notice. He nuzzles the top of his head under John’s chin and kisses his shoulder once more before pulling far back enough to look him in the eye.

“Did you. That is.” Sherlock blinks at him a few times, and John touches his temple while he organizes his words. “How close did you come to. Not. Being ok.”

John feels his lips part, but he can’t make the words come.  _ I’m not ok,  _ he wants to say.  _ I’m here, but I’m not ok. Why don’t you know? I wrote you so many times…  _ “Uh, fairly close,” he says. Sherlock’s eyes widen, grow glassy, so John pulls him down and into his arms and holds him close. “But I’m fine, I did it, I’m here. Sherlock.”

“I’m glad, John,” Sherlock whispers. He presses his hand against John’s scar with infinite tenderness, covering the whole mess of it and hiding it from view. He rests his forehead against John’s other shoulder and hums as John winds his arm about Sherlock’s waist. “I’m so, so glad.”

John’s heart beats through his skin, echoes between the walls of the room they’re in. He knows Sherlock can hear it; he kisses the top of Sherlock’s head, and closes his eyes.

“I’m glad, too.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY JOHNLOCK DAY <3<3<3
> 
> TW: panic attacks

The thing about kissing Sherlock Holmes is this:

Once you’ve done it, it’s pretty much impossible not to do it again.

They come downstairs after breakfast has been cleared away, and every Holmes except John’s is in parts unknown. Sherlock hovers behind John like a looming shadow, walking close to the backs of his heels, and when the door to the kitchen swings shut behind them, John turns around and kisses him swiftly on the corner of his mouth.

Sherlock reels back a little bit as John steps away, his eyes wide. And then, gaze locked with John’s, he touches the place John kissed with the pad of one finger and timidly smiles.

John isn’t going to make it to the end of the day, let alone Christmas. His heart is going to fail him. Again.

“Breakfast?” John asks him, walking backwards with his hands shoved in his pockets and trying his best to quell the self-satisfied grin pulling at his features.

Sherlock nods, still looking a bit dazed, and then says “Hm,” and then says “Yes, thank you,” and then grips the table with one hand like he can’t hold himself up anymore.  

By the time John is finished with the tea, Sherlock has migrated slowly to where John is busy buttering two pieces of crisply golden toast. Sherlock  _ fidgets.  _ Shifts from foot to foot. Trails his fingers over the sharp lip of the counter. Breathes loudly enough that John is reminded of last night, their movements like screams in the night-muffled dark, the shaking, sweating, beautiful mess that was Sherlock Holmes beneath John.

John drops the knife. It hits the toaster with a clatter, and Sherlock jumps, moving impossibly closer to John with a soft little noise. John looks up at him; Sherlock looks back down.

His pupils expand.

“I’m going to kiss you,” John says, at the same time that Sherlock begs in a shredded voice, “Please just kiss me,” and so they crash together in the middle of Mummy and Daddy Holmes’ kitchen, kissing and holding and  _ kissing _ like they haven’t done in years.

Sherlock feels so good, wrapped up in John’s arms like this. Soft, warm, alive.  _ Real.  _ He isn’t part of a dream; he isn’t going to go away when John opens his eyes, leaving John with empty arms and an empty bed. He’s here, he’s  _ real _ , at least until Christmas.

“Stop thinking,” Sherlock murmurs against John’s lips as he strokes his fingertips along John’s jaw, tilting his head a little to the right. “It’s giving me a headache.”

John laughs against his lips, swaying them back and forth a little bit and stretching up on tiptoe to get a better angle—an angle that prompts a dark, low sound from Sherlock’s throat. He’s never been able to find so much humor with another lover as he has with Sherlock. He’s never been able to laugh in the middle of a situation as emotional and potentially devastating as this one, never been able to smile and giggle and pull someone closer.  

John’s finding it incredibly difficult to remember why they ever gave this up.

“Reunited at last, I see.”

Sherlock jerks out of John’s arms with a haste that feels like being doused with cold water. Mycroft’s voice gathers, oily and slick, in the air around them.

“Good morning, Mycroft,” John says without looking at him, turning back to their toast. He retrieves the knife from the floor as Sherlock slinks over to the table with a frown and sits.

John can’t see him—but he’s sure Mycroft is pointedly checking his watch, and giving them the sort of pointed look down his long nose that John grew so accustomed to when he and Sherlock were together. “You’re a bit off on your time, Doctor Watson,” he drawls, and John stiffens at the title. “But then I’m sure you two were a bit too busy to check, weren’t you?”

“Not everyone’s existence is so meaningless that they have to schedule every second of their day,” Sherlock snaps, and John turns around quickly with a placid smile before the situation can escalate.

“Toast?” he  asks Mycroft congenially, setting Sherlock’s plate down before him and taking the chair to Sherlock’s right. He rests his hand over Sherlock’s on the table simply out of habit, and notices Mycroft’s gaze lingering there.

“I’ve eaten,” says Mycroft with a tight smile.

Sherlock opens his mouth to say something, but John squeezes his hand and his lips snap shut. Mycroft stares at them for an unsettlingly long time, so John begins eating to pass the time.

“Doctor Watson,” Mycroft says suddenly, hands folded neatly before him. John looks up. “Could I have a word?” He gestures to the hallway with one hand as Sherlock loudly groans.

“Sure,” John says, though he’s wary. He’s never really liked Mycroft, and Mycroft’s never really liked John, although they do have at least one mutual interest. That mutual interest is squeezing John’s hand like he’s about to fly away and making loud, protesting noises with increasingly desperate severity.

John raises his eyebrows at Sherlock; Sherlock pouts; John kisses him, and takes his brief, stunned silence as an opportunity to extricate himself. He follows Mycroft into the hall.

Mycroft takes a stance in the middle of the hallway, looking stoic and pious as he always does, and he watches John with an inscrutable gaze as John catches the kitchen door so it won’t slam when it shuts.

“Everything alright?” John asks, for lack of anything better to say.

Mycroft hesitates. It’s the first time that John’s ever seen him come close to being at a loss for words during their admittedly brief acquaintance, and he allows himself a brief moment of appreciation for the sight. That appreciation quickly turns into dread; for if a topic is dire enough that Mycroft Holmes doesn’t know how to approach it, John is in for a very rough conversation.

“I must tell you that I don’t approve of any of this.”

John is mildly incredulous. “That’s not exactly news, Mycroft,” he says, shifting his weight back onto his heels and crossing his arms. “It’s no secret that you’ve never liked me dating your brother.”

Mycroft looks like he’s just eaten something sour. “I find my dislike magnified this second time around,” he says, voice halting as if he’s choosing his words with care. “You’ve already broken his heart once, and he has never fully recovered. It isn’t difficult for a man as intelligent as you, Doctor Watson, to imagine how easily his heart will break again.” Mycroft’s expression grows, if possible, even more disgusted. The curl of his lips is at odds with the weirdly concerned layers of his words, and John’s head is spinning with the wrongness of this whole conversation. “Sherlock has always been… fragile. From childhood, I have taken it upon myself to protect him from as much pain as I can. I failed once, when you came into his life; I do not intend to fail again.”

Mouth dry, John gapes at him.  _ I broke his heart?  _ he wants to yell. It’s so obvious that Mycroft doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about that John could break down and cry in front of him.

“You had your chance with him,” Mycroft continues in a cold tone, before John can respond. “And you lost it. You do not have the right to try again.”

Giving a haughty jerk of the chin, Mycroft turns smoothly on his heels and strides down the hall. He makes a sharp left, and is gone.

John’s legs are made of water, and John’s heart is made of dynamite, half a second away from igniting and ruining everything around it. Taking in a breath so deep and long that he sees black dancing at the corners of his eyes, John leans against the wall behind him and drops his head into his hands.

Everything about that was wrong, wrong, wrong.

John had done  _ nothing _ more than what he thought was best for Sherlock. Ever. Even after that horrible day when he’d seen Victor kissing Sherlock, even with so much anger and pain and heartbreak coursing through his veins that he’d felt engulfed with fever all over again, he had done what he knew was best for Sherlock and stayed away. He hadn’t gone back to 221b and demanded answers, explanations, apologies; he had stayed away, and he had let Sherlock have what he clearly wanted, had let Sherlock have his happiness at the cost of John’s own. Because John loves him.

John  _ loves him. _

But Mycroft thinks… Mycroft thinks Sherlock had been heartbroken. Mycroft thinks that John Watson broke Sherlock Holmes’ heart, as if it wasn’t wholly the other way around. Thinks it’s going to happen again—and John has to laugh at that, a dry, brittle laugh that echoes in the hollows of his chest, because there aren’t any  _ feelings _ involved in this, at least not on Sherlock’s part, this is just about… this is just John fulfilling a job, and doing things to make Sherlock feel good because John is an  _ idiot _ and has absolutely no sense of self preservation and, god, if anyone’s in danger of having their heart broken it’s  _ him _ —

And suddenly, John is angry.

It isn’t the terrifying, gut-wrenching rage he’d felt the night after Sherlock’s betrayal. It isn’t the bright, vivid fury that had sustained him for nearly a year afterward. No; this anger is closer to sadness than anything else, a pulsing, aching thing that hides in the knothole behind his heart, and makes him want to weep.

He isn’t angry at Sherlock anymore. He isn’t even angry at Mycroft.

He’s angry at himself.

With a shuddering breath, he realizes that he isn’t  _ surprised  _ that Sherlock left him. He never has been—and if he’d stopped expecting it after the first few months of their relationship, well then that just proves what a worthless idiot he is. Sherlock Holmes is—Sherlock is—Sherlock is  _ perfect.  _ Sherlock is beautiful, and brilliant, and obviously kind enough to make John think that they stood a chance after John got back from Afghanistan. He didn’t know John was getting back early; he didn’t  _ know _ , he was probably waiting to break up with him the day he arrived in London, he probably had it all planned and John had the audacity to be  _ heartbroken _ that Sherlock didn’t want him, doesn’t want him, won’t ever want him. John had the audacity to fall in love with him—over, and over, and over again.

***

_ London, 2010. _

_ John’s train is leaving in five minutes. _

_ They are silent. They stand on the edge of the platform, John’s bag between them, utterly silent as people flood around them. A train whizzes by, and they sway backwards with the kick of air that rockets at them like a wall, synchronized. _

_ There are too many words in John’s head. Words that surely it is too early to say; words that he isn’t allowed to say five minutes before the train that will take him away from the person he wants to say them to arrives; words that are truer than anything else he can possibly fathom. _

_ Beside him, Sherlock’s right hand flexes. _

_ John turns to look at him. He feels as if he’s taking his last breaths, or seeing the sun shine one last time before it dies. He drinks in the sight of Sherlock Holmes—pale, features carefully blank, standing straight and breakable and staring blindly at something John cannot see—and forces back the tide of emotion that wells in his throat. _

_ He doesn’t know if he should do this. He doesn’t know if he even  _ can.  _ Sherlock is everything good in John’s life, everything beautiful, everything loving and loved in return, and John does not know if he’s physically capable of leaving him behind. _

_ Breath tight in his chest, John reaches out without meaning to and curls his fingers around Sherlock’s, and that’s what does it: Sherlock’s face crumples and his breath catches and he turns, tripping over John’s bag in his haste to throw himself into John’s arms, burying his face in John’s neck and squeezing John so tightly that tears prick at the corners of his eyes. _

_ “Don’t go,” Sherlock begs. His voice is high, wrecked, something so bare that John knows he’d be embarrassed if he could comprehend what he was saying. “Please, please don’t go, John, I don’t—I don’t think I can do it without you, I—” he breaks off harshly, his jagged-edged sentence lingering unfinished. _

_ John kisses him. Sherlock holds him close, muffling his terrified gasps with a frantic, desperate kiss in return, chest heaving against John’s. John holds the back of his neck with one palm, grips his waist tightly with the other, and licks into his mouth with no preamble whatsoever. _

_ This kiss feels raw. This kiss isn’t a reassurance, it isn’t a promise. This kiss is a ripped, horrified goodbye. _

_ “Please don’t leave me,” Sherlock croaks as John rests their foreheads together, but there’s such a dull hopelessness in his tone that John knows he’s aware it won’t work. _

_ “Sweetheart,” John whispers, eyes shut against tears that he refuses to let fall. “Darling,” he murmurs, and kisses Sherlock’s unabashedly wet eyes, tasting the salt on his silky eyelashes. He collects a few tears from beneath Sherlock’s left eye with his thumb, and Sherlock’s gasp rips the air between them like a knife through cloth. “Love, I’ll come back to you. I will.” _

_ “Promise me,” Sherlock insists, squeezing John’s arms so tightly that he’s sure his thumbs leave bruises under the thick fabric of John’s fatigues. “Promise, John Watson, that you’ll come home to me.” _

_ “I promise,” John rasps, and he means it. _

_ *** _

“John?”

John is sitting on the floor where Mycroft left him, his head between his knees, his lower back up against the baseboard. He sat here when he got too dizzy to remain standing, when the breath coming in and out of his lungs had sped up too fast for him to count. He’s shaking, shaking, shaking to pieces, and the last time he was this scared he was burning from infection and losing all of his blood on an operation table dirtied with grit and sand and death.

“John. John, breathe for me. John.”

Sherlock’s voice is warm and deep, so John focuses on that. Focuses on the rumbling sound that travels across his skin in waves and ripples, seeps into his brain, takes some of his focus off of the fact that he can’t seem to get enough breath to survive. 

John can’t see anything; the world is completely black, and he can’t tell if that’s because his eyes are shut or because he’s going blind, and—and—and—

“John.”

Sherlock is behind him, arms wrapped loosely around John’s middle, two hands resting on his stomach. His nose traces through the fine hair at the base of John’s skull. “Make my hands go up, John,” he instructs in a tone that’s firm but somehow, impossibly, safe.  _ Safe.  _ He makes John feel safe.

“Fuck—” John gasps, struggling to breathe in as deeply as Sherlock wants him to.  _ I love you, _ he wants to say, and he opens his mouth to tell Sherlock but “I think I’m having a panic attack,” comes out instead, and that’s ok, probably, it’s probably great, because Sherlock wouldn’t want to hear that anyway.

“Yes you are,” Sherlock says in a slow, measured tone. He’s breathing, long, easy, slow gusts, and John unconsciously matches the rhythms of his own inhales and exhales to Sherlock’s. “You’re alright, John, I have you. It’s ok. Just breathe. That’s it. In and out, and slowly now, not too shallow, not too fast. Good. Good, John. I have you now, I won’t let you go.”

Sherlock’s litany of words continue behind John, just lulling enough that they don’t flood his brain with more things than are already beating at the confines of it. Gradually, his breathing evens out; he opens his eyes, and no darkness encroaches upon his sight, the world doesn’t dip and spin and dive like it did earlier. His heartbeat doesn’t pound in his ears like a death knell anymore, and most of the icy fear that had gripped him is dissolved. Nothing more than a shaky grey shadow.

John becomes aware of Sherlock’s mouth pressed against the warm skin beneath John’s ear, his hands tracing soothing lines and circles over John’s stomach. Too exhausted to be embarrassed, John collapses back against him, and notices the cold echoes of tears drying on his cheeks. He hadn’t realized he’d been crying.

“Sherlock,” John tries, and has to swallow several times before any sound will come out of his throat. It feels like he swallowed glass. He’s still shaking a little bit, vibrating ever so slightly, and he wants to fall back into Sherlock and let himself be held like this until he dies. “Sherlock,” he says again, managing tone this time. “I’m sorry.”

It isn’t what he meant to say. He meant to say  _ thank you,  _ or  _ why did you help me?  _ or  _ you’re breaking my heart into a million pieces, shattering me completely, and there’s nothing that I can do about it.  _ But  _ I’m sorry  _ is fitting, too. He is. Sherlock shouldn’t have had to see him so weak.

Sherlock is silent behind John. There is no sound in the hallway save for the gentle whisper of their breaths, still matched perfectly.  _ In. Out. In. Out. In. _

And then, “John,” Sherlock whispers, and nudges his head until it turns, and kisses him.

It is imperfect. It’s a gentle, meaningful thing, pressed to the arch of John’s turned down mouth and held there until his frown very grudgingly melts away. This kiss isn’t for Sherlock; it’s entirely, completely for John. To help him. To make him feel better. To make him feel  _ safe. _

And it’s this—it’s this, more than anything else—that lets John believe he might have a tiny, weak sliver of hope.

“What did Mycroft say to you?” Sherlock murmurs after John has let his head fall back to rest on Sherlock’s shoulder, and Sherlock has propped his cheek on the crown of John’s head. There’s danger in his tone; enough that John wouldn’t have told him what Mycroft said even if the act wouldn’t be incredibly incriminating.

“Nothing,” John breathes, and he can tell Sherlock is frowning behind him, but he lets it drop. “Thank you.

Again, Sherlock doesn’t answer. His hands continue to move up and down John’s stomach, in circles and lines and fanciful curlicues, and the motion is so soothing that John feels himself drifting off again, even though they’ve only been awake for a few hours at the most.

“I think I’d do anything for you,” Sherlock admits in a whisper, and John turns around in his grip, and frames Sherlock’s face with his gently trembling hands, and kisses him.


End file.
